A vibrational therapy could be used to replicate a strengthening activity like weightlifting in patients whose bones are broken or brittle, suggests a new study. It addresses an interesting paradox: bones become denser when subjected to mechanical force and load—which is true eve … | Continue reading
Phantom limb is one of those enduring medical mysteries: that someone could feel sensations in a hand which had long ago been lost to amputation. A little like harnessing the placebo effect, scientists have been able to stimulate nerve endings on the skin of an amputated arm whic … | Continue reading
In a degraded and semi-arid farming area in India, simple science-driven changes to the landscape have colored the horizon, and a village’s fortunes, with green. In the Latur district in the central western state of Maharashtra, 40 years of erratic rainfall, groundwater depletion … | Continue reading
A recent LiDAR survey in southern Mexico has revealed that a known site of pre-Colombian fortifications was actually a thriving urban center of 5,000 people or more. Despite being known to Spanish explorers, modern historians, and archaeologists, the site of Guiengola in the hill … | Continue reading
Reprinted from permission from World at Large A breakthrough in packaged tuna preparation has been found to reduce mercury content in the fish by 35%. Consumption of tuna has long been limited, especially by pregnant women and nursing mothers, for the known fact that the fish acc … | Continue reading
From the sands of Egypt’s Western Desert, a nearly complete skull of a prehistoric apex predator offers scientists the chance to understand ever so much about how climate change affects animal extinction. Belonging to a fully extinct order of carnivores called Hyaenodonts (hyena- … | Continue reading
A huge dinosaur footprint dating back 127 million years has been found on a UK beach after a rainstorm. A 23-year-old fossil guide spotted the three-toed print on the Isle of Wight. Joe Thompson says the one-meter long footprint revealed itself after storms stripped the beach of … | Continue reading
Stanford University chemists have developed a practical, low-cost way to permanently remove atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming and climate change. The new process uses heat to transform common minerals into materials that spontaneously pull carbon from … | Continue reading
A modern-looking diving bird was living somewhere in Antarctica when a massive asteroid struck the Earth and caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. But unlike the dinosaurs, this early ancestor of today’s waterfowl survived that mass extinction event, and a nearly complete skull has … | Continue reading
Maybe you were a kid the first time you ever saw dry ice: remember how strange it seemed compared to water ice? NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover recently captured a short clip of dry ice clouds lit up with colors from the setting Sun drifting over the Red Planet. Martian clouds are al … | Continue reading
Research into a cancer treatment over 10 years in the making has born remarkable fruit with the juicy potential to greatly improve existing radiation therapy. Throughout the 21st century, GNN has reported on how cancer research has broadened, expanded, become more precise and mor … | Continue reading
A protein found in oysters has been identified as an outright killer of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and to strengthen antibiotics’ overall effectiveness. The discovery was made by scientists in Australia who found the protein in the bivalve’s ‘hemolymphs,’ cells that act a lit … | Continue reading
NASA sent a valentine to space lovers on social media this week posting images of heart shapes found on Mars. The pictures were all captured from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) in the past decades—but with Valentine’s Day on Friday, it was the perfect moment to share the compilat … | Continue reading
When parsing through images meant to test the camera on a new space telescope, scientists recently recognized a striking and rare phenomenon that had been perfectly captured by the craft. A galaxy, shining in the distance, was tightly encircled by a halo of white light—also known … | Continue reading
What if the best course of action in the fight against cancer isn’t to fight at all? Rather than killing these mutated cells, a new study from Korea presents a treatment wherein they can be changed back to healthy cells at a key moment. The authors liken the method to the moment … | Continue reading
An international satellite monitoring collaboration is being formed to track the population of a keystone species in the waters around Antarctica. Aimed at providing sophisticated and accurate data to help inform decisions about fishing in the Southern Ocean, it will use changes … | Continue reading
Graying hair is a hallmark of aging and often considered an inevitable part of growing older. However, recent research from Nagoya University in Japan suggests that an antioxidant might suppress this process. Researchers Masashi Kato and Takumi Kagawa identified luteolin, an anti … | Continue reading
A new study evaluated a low-cost yet effective way to combat bacterial resistance using curcumin–the natural yellow plant compound in turmeric. In 2017, a tragic death in a Nevada hospital was linked to a new strain of bacteria that had developed a resistance to 26 different anti … | Continue reading
Got any plans for December 22nd, 2032? You may consider canceling them, as there’s a non-zero percent chance that an asteroid will strike the Earth with an explosive force equivalent to thousands of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. But don’t worry! Despite being the only id … | Continue reading
The most durable plastic polymers used in society are never recycled, but a new discovery from Cornell University may be about to change that. Known as crosslinked thermosets, or thermosets for short, these plastics can be found in bowling balls, replacement hip joints, and car t … | Continue reading
A heart pump no bigger than a fountain pen has just been approved by the FDA for use in children, having already saved adult lives in a revolutionary way. Cardiologists don’t even need to open a chest cavity to install the Impella 5.5, the world’s smallest heart pump that can kee … | Continue reading
Researchers from the University of Waterloo have discovered that a special form of charcoal is highly effective at absorbing chromium and transforming it from a toxic industrial waste form into the form seen in nutritional supplements. Chromium is a heavy metal that exists in two … | Continue reading
Scientists in China experimenting with rice cultivars have been able to crossbreed a non-GMO variety that produces 70% less methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is emitted in large amounts through rice cultivation. The team is now seeking to demonstrate the importance of this ne … | Continue reading
Cats are wearing hats for science—as researchers use brain scans to understand pain in arthritic felines, and find a way to soothe it. It’s a world first for veterinary scientists at the University of Montreal (UdeM): they found a way to scan the brains of cats while they’re stil … | Continue reading
Though recently gaining the limelight as a superior alternative to lobster tail, a species of giant isopod is making headlines for another reason: it was never officially entered into the scientific record. Now that it has, it happened to be through the work of Peter Ng, a “carci … | Continue reading
In 2018, a NASA mission arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Bennu to collect pristine samples to be analyzed on Earth. By a country mile, there have never been more ingredients for life identified in a single extraterrestrial material of any kind, with Bennu carrying all five DNA … | Continue reading
A general anesthetic has been found to have the potentially added benefit of stimulating a neuroprotective effect against Alzheimer’s disease. Xenon is a colorless, odorless noble gas used for many purposes in science, but a recent study in mice found it stimulated the brain’s re … | Continue reading
From the depths of the engineering department at California Technical Institute comes a big one: a new class of matter. Though scientists are trained not to be, maybe laboratory director Chiara Daraio was being hyperbolic when she described the new material as such, but she and t … | Continue reading
Though GNN has reported that several sickle cell disease patients have already been successfully treated with CRISPR gene editing technology, a new method of addressing this debilitating condition has been successfully demonstrated. Braden Baptiste has had sickle cell crises sinc … | Continue reading
76 million years ago, a young pterosaur dropped down from the skies to the water’s edge. Perhaps looking for a snack in the form of a prehistoric fish, the juvenile almost ended up becoming a meal itself. Or it may actually have, we’ll never know for certain, but a punctured vert … | Continue reading
A new British study reveals the mysterious mounds found on Mars were formed by ancient water. Thousands of mounds and hills in the Red Planet’s barren northern plains are full of clay minerals, providing evidence that the rocks here were once soaked with water. These mounds are a … | Continue reading
In the search for better and better treatments for breast cancer, medical researchers at the Univ. of Illinois have synthesized a remarkable substance. In small tumors, a single dose of ErSO-TFPy eliminated them entirely, while the same dose significantly shrank large tumors. In … | Continue reading
In a proud moment for our heritage, researchers have found evidence that Stone Age humans carved a map of their territory into the floor of a cave in modern France. Chipping away to create indentations for basins, these pioneering cartographers then cut grooves into the cave floo … | Continue reading
An anti-fungal agent produced naturally by carrots has been suggested in a new study to substantially aid in the regulation of blood sugar. The authors suggest that carrots may be a useful, low-cost, non-pharmaceutical diabetes treatment, although as the study was only conducted … | Continue reading
An international team of scientists in the Antarctic has successfully extracted what is believed to be the world’s oldest ice—a historic milestone for climate science. They drilled down almost two miles to extract 2.8-km of ice core, reaching the actual bedrock beneath the Antarc … | Continue reading
A family woke up and found their car windshield with a hole in it, but their curious son soon cracked the mystery. Paul Butler and his family were watching TV the night before when they heard a loud bang outside, but dismissed the noise as holiday fireworks and went to bed. The n … | Continue reading
A team at Northwestern University has transformed an industrial waste product into a battery for storing sustainable energy. While many iterations of these batteries are in production or being researched for grid-scale applications, using a waste molecule, in this case, triphenyl … | Continue reading
Wearable electronic textiles can be both sustainable and biodegradable, shows a new study. A research team led by the University of Southampton and UWE Bristol in the UK tested a new sustainable approach for fully inkjet-printed, eco-friendly e-textiles. Named SWEET—for Smart, We … | Continue reading
Observing individual stars halfway across the observable universe has generally been regarded as impossible in astronomy, akin to trying to use binoculars to see individual grains of dust in the Moon’s craters—yet that’s exactly what the James Webb Space Telescope just accomplish … | Continue reading
The last 15 years have seen a remarkable change in the clinical considerations of coffee. Studies examining the caffeinated beverage for its potential effects on more than several different biological systems, from the kidneys to mood, have pinned it as something like a health dr … | Continue reading
(Originally published by Knowable Magazine—Written by Bob Holmes) Everyone loves to watch hummingbirds—tiny, brightly colored blurs that dart about, hovering at flowers and pugnaciously defending their ownership of a feeder. But to the scientists who study them, hummingbirds offe … | Continue reading
Mysterious radio bursts from outer space first discovered in 2007, last only a millisecond but can carry an enormous amount of energy—enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies. Since that first fast radio burst, or FRB, astronomers have detected thousands more, whose locations r … | Continue reading
A new way of treating common inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema is on the horizon, according to a new study. American researchers discovered that a compound called SYM2081 inhibited certain cells that drive inflammation in mice and human skin samples. They say it paves t … | Continue reading
It’s not an alignment, but the January sky will be lit up with the lights of our solar system neighbors. As the eight planets move about our star along the plane of the ecliptic, certain periods of certain years offer extra-special opportunities to see them shining bright. This J … | Continue reading
A study looking at the bearers of artificial hearts found that a subset of them can regenerate heart muscle tissue—the first time such an observation has ever been made. It may open the door to new ways to treat and perhaps someday cure heart failure, the deadliest non-communicab … | Continue reading
Scientists investigating Alzheimer’s disease have made a key breakthrough, identifying a vital cellular mechanism driving the most common cause of dementia. The research from the City University of New York (CUNY) provides a promising target for drug therapies that could slow, an … | Continue reading
A matrix of squid bone and cotton cellulose offers a low-cost, scalable solution to global microplastic poisoning according to a new study from China. Attempting to find a material that would address all common concerns with microplastic filtration, the scientists’ cotton-squid s … | Continue reading
Using a pair of satellites, the European Space Agency is set to be able to create artificial solar eclipses on-demand to study one of the most important features of our Sun. Lost in the sheer brightness of the star, the corona, or crown of the Sun, is hotter and larger than the S … | Continue reading